


Reamur

by serendipityxxi



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-21
Updated: 2012-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-31 13:30:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityxxi/pseuds/serendipityxxi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the corner of the room Cara felt her shoulders stiffen as the man’s words carried clearly. She did not have to look over to see Richard Cypher - Seeker of Truth, Lord of D’Hara, Rescuer of kittens, puppies and whatever else needed it -’s ears perk up. Richard turned in his seat and Cara rolled her eyes at their other companion, Kahlan Amnell. Both women were accustomed to Richard’s inability to resist a damsel or in this case a village in distress. Richard’s grandfather continued to eat his lunch, seeming unperturbed. In reality Zedd knew he better eat fast or he’d lose the opportunity altogether. Young people today had strange priorities. Case fic that involves gars and calthrops and wishes, oh my!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reamur

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Takes place sometime after Vengeance but before Eternity.  
> Author's Note: This was originally written for two challenges on legendland - Mapping the Midlands spawned the prologue and the Mini BBA gave me the incentive to come up with the rest. Many thanks to sourpony and bouncing_chibi for beta-ing.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine. No money. Don't sue.

Prologue:  
  
  
_Reamur is a small village only three days walk from Aydindril. It’s got dusty streets and wood framed houses like most places in the Midlands. It’s home to the usual sorts, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers. Reamur makes paper; they log trees from the forests all around. Oaks and maple, pine and spruce, they all go into the paper mill and with a little bit of magic out they come in sheets upon sheets of paper some fine and smooth, others wrinkled and mottled from the novices. This paper is sent to Aydindril for the Wizards’ use and the Confessors, to the scribes in Briamont, sent out for important people recording the lives of the average. The paper mill and waterwheel is not why people come to Reamur though.  
  
They come to Reamur for the wishing tree. It’s planted at the edge of town, behind the baker’s place and wasn’t he pleased when they discovered it was a magical tree. It’s said that those who come and write their wish on a scrap of paper and tie it to the tree have it granted to them. You have to be careful what you wish for though. The tree has been known to give you exactly what you wanted.  
  
Some come to wish for health, some wish for wealth but the tree was created out of love and it is lovers who find their wishes granted most often.  
  
Once in a time when there were many Confessors, there lived one young Confessor named Theodora. She had russet coloured hair and blue green eyes that changed colour with her mood and Theodora had many moods. Theodora was assigned a wizard for protection as all Confessors are; he was a bright and shining star in the Keep, one of the youngest and most powerful of all the Wizards. Patrick Hathaway was a cocky young man; he had his power, his good looks and his way with the ladies. They called him ‘Trick’, for his penchant for dancing coins along his knuckles.  
  
Trick and Theodora fought like cats and dogs from the first moment they met. He insisted on calling her Teddy. She was outraged he would treat her with such familiarity, ignoring her station as a Confessor. He insisted she needed to lighten up. She threatened to lighten him up. He laughed and told her he was the one with the magic and would do the lighting; she spent the next few days with lightning springing up at the end of her curls. He spent the month after that in robes that had bleached from a respectable shade of dark red to a violent orange almost the colour of persimmons before new robes could be made for him.  
  
They both pleaded to the heads of their orders to be reassigned to anyone, anyone at all. But the Mother Confessor was firm and the First Wizard unmoved and Teddy and Trick were stuck with each other. In travelling Teddy found he wasn’t all flash and glitz, he saved her and an entire village from a flash flood one spring. Trick discovered she wasn’t all ice and control, he found her sobbing over the body of a man she’d confessed who was innocent of his crime, he’d been wounded too badly to be saved once his innocence had been proven.  
  
Over time each gave a little of themselves, they bent towards the other and before either was aware of it they were friends. And then they were more than friends. Teddy still had her powers and Trick with all his magic could not spell his way through and they both knew it so they acted like nothing had changed, like they were only friends. Until they came to Reamur.  
  
There had been a drought that year and with that drought came wildfires. The flames turned on them so fast they didn’t even see it coming. And Trick with all his magic and Teddy with all the love she could not give were killed in the passion of nature as it raged through the valley. When the fires were finally put out, they found the wizard’s body, curled around the Confessor’s, both were mostly bone by then. When the rescuers tried to move them they crumbled to ash and the ash began to glow and two saplings sprung out of the ash, an oak and a willow, they wound around each other as they grew soft and hard wood that shouldn’t coexist but they did. The tree grew tall and strong until there was no way to tell where one ended and the other began. That was when the magic started.  
  
A young couple eloping, penniless, spent the night beneath the tree, they both wished so hard that they could do right by the other. When they woke the old baker was there and he offered to let them apprentice to him, and the use of the cottage behind the bakery. That was when the story began to spread. Today you’ll find the hopes and dreams of the Midlands on the Wishing Tree of Reamur, some of them come true._  
  
~~~~~  
  
_“And turned the handsome Prince into a frog with a cackle,”_ Tallulah – Lu – Loredan read to herself beneath the Wishing Tree behind the bakery in Reamur. It was her favourite spot for reading, there was a crook in the big roots of the tree just big enough to wedge her thin shoulders into and be hidden from view. She spent most sunny afternoons in her spot, forgotten by the world and forgetting the world in her books. There came a croak from behind her a few moments later and the girl jumped, looking around. Round green eyes peered up at her from the grass, almost glowing in the twilight.  
  
She laughed and winked at the frog. “Sorry friend, I won’t be kissing you tonight no matter what the story says.” Lu was eleven years old, but small for her age. She had enormous brown doe eyes, shoulder length brown hair and a fierce taste for books. She was incredibly shy but if you got her started on the subject of stories she’d talk your ear off.  
  
Lu read on for several more minutes until the very last of the sun’s rays had surrendered the sky to the moon. It was a crescent moon tonight, no good for reading by. So Lu got up and went in through the back door of the bakery. Inside the family was bustling around preparing dinner and discussing her older brother Peter’s wedding that would take place in two days. Peter winked at her when she came in, the rest of the family ignored her all through dinner busy with their plans and Lu escaped to her tiny room before they were half done.  
  
Peter was going to take over the bakery from their father. He was even better at making cakes than their dad. Lu only wished she had his talent. She wasn’t good at baking or cooking or sewing or anything and as the youngest in a family full of creative, noisy people Lu, the quiet, bookish one, was often over looked. Most of the time she didn’t mind, Reamur had its own paper mill, it had an entire store devoted to books and the library shelves overflowed so she was never without an ink-friend or two but sometimes, just sometimes she wished they would come to life so she had someone to talk to.  
  
Lu curled up under the tall frame of her bed with the quilt and a short candle, tugging the sheet over the side of the bed so that the candle’s light did not shine under the door. She curled into a ball under the quilt, angling the book so the candle’s light fell over it.  
  
_“Deep in the woods a fearsome beast guarded the treasure. It was called a buribar and the most frightening thing about it was not the large sharp teeth it sometimes sported but the fact that it could change its shape and assume the form of the thing you most fear,”_ Lu read to herself, trying to drown out the voices of her family. They never shut up! She read long into the night, long after all the voices had gone to bed. Lu’s eyes were drifting slowly shut on the story when there came a crack from outside her window, as of footsteps on branches. Her mind flashed to the scarecrow in the fields on the outskirts of town. She’d always been terrified it would come to life. Now her mind brought her the image of its straw head with its stitched on grin peering in her window and twiggy fingers scratching at the walls of her house.  
  
Lu shut the monster stories book with a clap and opened the book of fairy tales, all thoughts of sleep gone. She read but her concentration guttered like a candle in strong wind as the footsteps carried on around the house. She started to read out loud again to block out the noise but her voice shook and she stumbled over the words. Finally the scratching noise stopped and Lu lay still and quiet under her bed wondering why.  
  
Then came the roar of a large creature and a scream that seemed to go on forever until it stopped. Lu lay under her bed shaking for a long time afterwards.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
“It was twelve feet tall and had hands as big as a shield! I saw it hit a man so hard he flew right across a clearing and into a tree!” The speaker was a burly man with a beard and very small black eyes set above a bulbous nose. “We need to get a group together and go after it,” he urged his listeners.  
  
In the corner of the room Cara Mason felt her shoulders stiffen as the man’s words carried clearly. She did not have to look over to see Richard Cypher - Seeker of Truth, Lord of D’Hara, rescuer of kittens, puppies and whatever else needed it -’s ears perk up. Richard turned in his seat and Cara rolled her eyes at their other companion, Kahlan Amnell, the Mother Confessor. Both women were accustomed to Richard’s inability to resist a damsel, or in this case, a village in distress. Richard’s grandfather continued to eat his lunch, seeming unperturbed. In reality Zedd knew he better eat fast or he’d lose the opportunity altogether. Young people today had strange priorities.  
  
“There’s a creature in your forest?” Richard asked the man closest to him.  
  
“That forest is full of creatures,” the man complained. “Last week a Shadrin came out!”  
  
“Two days before that a Gar attacked the farm on the outskirts of town if you’ll believe it!” his companion piped up. “This far South too,” she added.  
  
The woman had scarcely finished speaking when a teenaged girl tumbled in through the doors of the tavern. Her dark hair was in disarray, she carried a basket full of laundry that had obviously fallen in the mud and been scooped up hastily.  
  
“A Calthrop!” She shrieked. “There’s a Calthrop out there near the river!”  
  
And there it was. Cara knew there was no way they were leaving the villagers to their own devices now. The only thing that could kill a Calthrop was the Sword of Truth. Richard was already rising from his seat, hand on the pommel of his sword. Kahlan reached the distraught girl first, Cara following at a much slower pace.  
  
The girl gasped out her story while Richard rushed to the door and poked his nose and sword out. The creature could not be seen as the front door of the tavern faced away from the river. He wondered how a Calthrop could be out in daylight, but he was used to things in the Midlands being strange.  
  
“Stay here!” He directed the stunned villagers. “Barricade the doors behind me,” he ordered the men standing nearby who stumbled to their feet to follow them. Richard liked coming across as affable and easy going but when he spoke in his Seeker of Truth tone people moved as he bid. Cara and Kahlan followed unsheathing agiels and daggers as they went. The Wizard rose, dusted off his robes and walked outside at a sedate pace.  
  
Reamur was built in a bowl surrounded by the forests that supplied its paper mill. The woods lay behind even the main street of the town where the tavern and all the businesses were set. The only thing the woods did not border was the paper mill which opened onto the river. So when Richard rounded the corner of the building he was fifty yards away from the woods. The roar of the Calthrop reached his ears and he quickly moved off in that direction. He ran through the forest until the sparkle of the river reached his eyes. He skulked among the trees along the bank, trying to take the beast by surprise.  
  
He had spotted his quarry and was maybe ten feet away when another shrill scream split the air to his left. It was a little girl, she had been crouched behind a fallen tree but the beast’s proximity had frightened her out of her spot. The girl darted away from the Calthrop heading towards the river. The beast loped after her, gaining ground quickly. Something strange happened when it was in grabbing distance though, the Calthrop began to lose its shape. Its clawed hands transforming into twigs that reached for her nevertheless. The Calthrop’s head grew a hat made of straw and took on a burlap texture, it moved not in strong loping steps but with quick shuffles, losing bits of straw here and there as it ran.  
  
Richard was accustomed to things being strange in the Midlands but this was something entirely new. Still the thing was after the little girl, whatever it was. He ran towards them. The little girl reached the river and sobbing with fear she started to cross it, stumbling as her skirts grew heavy with water. The scarecrow - for that’s what it was now - a wicked grin stitched across its dirty grey face reached for her as she went sprawling. Richard leaped off the bank and kicked the scarecrow in its face. Even stranger though was before his feet connected the face lost its cloth texture and its eyes, they were blue like Denna’s. The figure fell backwards into the water and before its limbs could change from the sticks and twigs it was carried away by the river’s current.  
  
Richard helped the cowering girl up. At the touch of his hand she burst into fresh tears.  
  
“Hey now, you’re okay,” Kahlan comforted the girl. She was suddenly at his side and he smiled at her, he could always count on Kahlan to be there. The two of them supported the girl out of the river and up onto the banks. Her sobs lost their tinge of hysteria eventually and she explained she was the daughter of the baker, she’d been reading on the bank while her almost sister-in-law, Katherine, did the wash. The calthrop had come out of the woods with no warning. Zedd went back to the tavern and fetched Katherine and her soiled laundry and they walked the girls back to the baker’s house over a rise to the South.  
  
“Did you see how the calthrop changed?” Richard asked Kahlan quietly as they walked. Zedd was entertaining their new friends with tales of grand wizardry, embellishing as he went along.  
  
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Richard shook his head.  
  
Kahlan took a step closer and inclined her head towards his so her words didn’t carry, “I think it was a buribar.”

"That would explain how a calthrop could be out during the day," Cara agreed.

“We almost ran into one some time ago, didn’t we?” Richard asked Kahlan. “I didn’t get a good look at it then.”  
  
“And you most likely won’t, my boy.” Zedd interrupted as he rejoined them, leaving the two girls to walk ahead of them with Cara in the lead, on the lookout for anything else that might attack. “Buribars assume the form of the thing you most fear when you approach. They are creatures of powerful magic. It’s lucky for us all that little girl was afraid of the scarecrow in the fields to the North. Calthrops are fierce fighters as you well remember, a calthrop shaped buribar would be even worse.”  
  
Richard nodded thoughtfully. “We can’t leave these people to deal with this threat on their own.”  
  
Zedd agreed and Kahlan smiled indulgently. Up ahead Cara rolled her eyes. She’d known it was coming.

 

~~~~~

 

The baker invited them to stay at his house, Richard did the whole “We wouldn’t want to inconvenience you,” dance, they ended up staying in the baker’s barn. Cara was going to muzzle him one of these days and accept a bed when offered it. She didn’t think Kahlan or Zedd would argue.  
  
“You’re staying in an historic place, you know?” the baker, a man named Haymitch Loredan told them. “The Wishing Tree of Reamur is in the backyard.”  
  
“The wishing tree?” Richard asked.  
  
“Yes. You've never heard of it?” the baker’s wife, Effie, asked. “The gnarled old tree you can see in the middle of the yard behind the house? Anyone who makes a wish under it, particularly young lovers,” Effie glanced across the room to her son and his bride-to-be with a smile, “is said to have it granted. People come from all around the Midlands to leave their wishes on the tree. They write them on little scraps of paper that you can get from the paper mill for a small price and tie them to the tree.”  
  
“My grandfather and grandmother when they eloped they spent their first night under that tree,” the baker took up the story, “they were penniless, their families wouldn’t have them back and when they woke up the old baker found them and invited them to apprentice to him. My grandfather made the best cakes you could imagine though no one in the family has a hand with icing the way Peter does," the man bragged.  
  
"He's an artist!" his wife agreed.   
Across the room Peter rolled his eyes at Lu who giggled.  
  
The girl was almost recovered from her fright that afternoon though Kahlan had noticed the family had fussed more over Katherine than they had their own daughter.  
  
“So tell me more about Buribars?” Richard asked and the baker grew solemn.  
  
Lu sank back into the corner nearest to the hearth, her thin arms banded across the book she held to her chest.  
  
"They change according to what the person nearest to them fears," she whispered, though it carried across the room as if she had shouted.  
  
"Yes, yes it does," Zedd agreed, pinning the girl with a curious look that she shrank away from. "You have to get a buribar to show itself in its natural form to kill it, otherwise it will just regenerate the next time someone walks past who has a different fear," the Wizard warned.  
  
"And how do you kill a buribar?" Peter asked before Richard could.  
  
"The usual way you kill anything," Cara replied dryly, she was straddling a chair from the kitchen table near the window, away from the crowd of the family both for her own temper’s sake and so the family could stop cringing every time she moved. Let them think she would test her agiels on them for fun if they liked, Cara wouldn’t be the one to disabuse them of that notion.  
  
Sure enough the farmer’s back went up when Cara spoke and the Mord Sith rolled her eyes.  
  
Kahlan, seated next to Richard, gave her a reproving look that Cara ignored.  
  
“Who else has seen it? What other forms has it taken?” Richard asked bringing the conversation back on track.  
  
“Where has it been seen and what time of day?” Kahlan added.  
  
Richard nudged her surreptitiously with his elbow, sending her a sideways smile. She was quite the tracker now.  
  
“We’ve been getting reports of strange beasts in the area for quite some time, once someone even mentioned they saw a dragon,” Effie’s voice was strung tight with nerves.  
  
Peter put his hand on his mother’s shoulder. “A lot of the creatures have been spotted in the woods near here. Last night Kat saw the same calthrop on her way home.”  
  
Katherine scowled at the group. She’d looked foolish this afternoon, but she’d had to warn the village of the calthrop. She was embarrassed she’d left Lu but the calthrop had been between her and the younger girl and she’d had no weapons. How was she to know it was a buribar?  
  
“I live right next door and I was almost to my door when I saw the calthrop. I screamed and Peter and I ran inside to get weapons. By the time we came back out it was gone though…” her voice trailed off as she realized it hadn’t disappeared but had merely turned back into the shape of a buribar.  
  
“I didn’t see it,” Peter interrupted. He looked to Katherine. “When you said you saw the calthrop I didn’t see it! I remember I felt frightened at the time though. I thought I had missed it in the darkness of the woods but it was because I wasn’t seeing the same thing you were.” Now Peter looked worried as if he finally believed it was a buribar.  
  
Lu wrapped her arms around her knees in the corner. She’d been reading about buribars and one had appeared, just like she’d been reading about frogs when one had appeared. She trembled, wondering if it was her fault. She looked longingly to her brother, wanting to confess but he was focused on the Seeker who was speaking.  
  
“We should question other people who’ve seen creatures in the village, get an idea of where this thing lives.”  
  
“We’ll take you,” Peter offered and Lu slumped backwards in her corner.  
  
The Seeker’s party had barely left the bakery when the roar came from their left. Richard’s hand went to his sword, Kahlan and Cara drew their weapons as well. It was coming from the woods. Richard’s quick eyes spotted the wide leathery wings of a gar and his heart began to trip hammer in his throat remembering the first time he had seen a gar.  
  
“Stay here,” Richard ordered Peter and Kat.  
  
They entered the woods cautiously, Cara and Zedd circling around to cut off the buribar’s escape. The trees around them grew thick and close, the dim light seeping in from above created more shadows rather than illuminating things. The wind picked up, brought on by the approaching summer storm, stirring the leaves around their feet and making it harder to hear the beast.  
  
Richard hoped it was a buribar, he remembered the sting of the gar’s blood flies all too well, the heaviness fear had lent to the forest and Kahlan’s trembling hand pressed over his mouth. He set his jaw, realizing the fear he felt was caused by the creature that it was feeding off his emotion, getting stronger with it. He gripped the sword more firmly. His quick eyes spotted it through the trees, still in Gar form, and he signalled to Kahlan who nodded. They approached all but silently.  
  
Kahlan got closest to the creature before it noticed her approach and turned snarling, spreading its wings. She lunged towards it and suddenly it put its head back and shrieked a scream full of righteous rage. It turned red eyes on Kahlan, with long dark hair that flowed around its shoulders and white skirts that swirled around its legs, hand outstretched in that familiar confessor stance.  
  
Kahlan froze, staring at herself in the Con Dar. “Richard!” she called out the frightened warning as the buribar spun with all Kahlan’s usual grace and launched itself towards Richard.  
  
The Seeker raised his sword and braced himself but Cara tackled the beast before it could get to him. She landed a solid punch to Kahlan’s doppelganger’s jaw even as it morphed before her eyes. It became herself in baneling form, the skin hanging off her cheek where Cara’s own fist had struck. Baneling Cara punched her back, hard, sending the mord sith toppling off her and back into the dirt behind her. It drew its agiels and twirled them dangerously, grinning at its mirror image.  
  
Zedd shot a blast of Wizard’s fire between the two, scorching the buribar baneling who screamed in Cara’s voice until it had no voice left. It collapsed into a pile of bones while Cara lay panting on the forest floor.  
  
Zedd quickly wove a magical cage to hold the bones that retained their human shape, its glittering bars had no sooner settled around the skull and the rest of the skeleton before it rattled to life again. It retained the look of bone though it grew tough skin and the screech it let out sent shivers down the spines of all those watching. The screeling shook the bars of the cage but Richard stepped forward and the screeling morphed into Denna, dangling his collar from her fingertips. Kahlan stepped forward quickly, putting her hand on Richard’s shoulder and the buribar turned into a hissing snake its long black body started to coil through the gaps in the bars of the cage. Cara moved to kick at the creature and the tail snaking out of the cage bars turned into a leather clad arm. Peter and Katherine, who had been watching nearby stepped forward now. The buribar raged into the calthrop, slamming itself against the bars of the cage now, then it caught Peter’s scent turning into a shadrin, it battered the magical barriers.  
  
“Get closer!” Zedd ordered.  
  
“We have to confuse it,” Kahlan explained to Richard. “Make it not sure what shape to take so it switches back!”  
  
Cara stepped close and sneered at her baneling self as it tried to reach her through the bars, Richard, Kahlan and Zedd followed suit. Peter and Katherine looking pale stepped forward as well, their hands tightly entwined as they faced their fears. The buribar slammed into sections of the cage, getting as close as it could to each of them in turn but they all held their ground.  
  
High in a tree nearby Lu looked down at the scene unfolding below, her breath in her throat as she watched the buribar morph at lightning speed until the changing slowed and there was a pop and suddenly the buribar was a small creature. It had a flat face and pointed ears. It was barely bigger than a large hare and shouldn’t have looked threatening except for its eyes, those were as black and cold as the Keeper’s heart. It snarled, flashing sharp teeth. It dashed for the gaps in the magical cage, intent on slipping through them. It would have fit easily and Lu’s heart was in her throat but the Seeker slammed his sword down and vanquished the buribar in one stroke. It lay there, bleeding black blood as everyone stood shocked into silence until there was a puff of smoke and the creature exploded into ash.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
That night they spent the night in the baker’s barn, and of course Richard was suckered into staying for the wedding the next day too. Zedd was ecstatic for the feast that would follow. Kahlan, sentimentalist that she was, couldn’t resist a wedding. And Cara, well she was sure that she looked good naked so if the Keeper managed to tear the veil before they could find the stone of tears then so be it.  
  
Cara took first watch, Zedd with a belly full of pastries and cakes was out like a light, passed out on a bale of hay. The two lovebirds lay side by side and talked quietly in the dim glow of the one candle they left lit. Cara kept her eyes on the sky; the storm that had been threatening all day was finally breaking, wiping away the world around them with a thick veil of rain. The slips of paper tied to the wishing tree would be ruined soon. She didn’t know why that bothered her but she blamed the Seeker for her unease.  
  
On the second floor of the barn Richard and Kahlan lay facing each other. Kahlan had her blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her face looked soft and open in the candlelight. The wind blew an empty burlap feedbag across the floor and she strained to identify the noise, the ribbons of her hair dragged across her cheek when she turned her head.  
  
“Don’t worry, I checked the barn and there are no snakes,” Richard teased gently.  
  
Kahlan settled back down and rolled her eyes at him. “I just really don’t like them,” she insisted.  
  
Richard reached out and cupped her cheek, rubbing his thumb along her cheekbone softly. Kahlan smiled and leant into the caress. Her mouth opened and then closed as she rethought her next sentence.  
  
“What is it?” Richard asked with a small smile for her benefit.  
  
“I...I didn’t realize how lasting an impression Denna made on you,” she reached up and clasped his fingers with her own, squeezing them reassuringly.  
  
Richard was at a loss for words. “Neither did I...” he admitted after a time. “She’s been dead for months now and we’ve come across other Mord Sith...Cara...” he was quiet for a long time before he confessed in a whisper “I still feel the collar sometimes.”  
  
“Oh, Richard,” Kahlan murmured, her heart going out to him. Her stomach twisted unpleasantly as she thought of the time he’d worn the collar to help her save Dennee, knowing now what a great sacrifice he had made for her then.  
  
“No,” he shook his head, “I’m okay. It was a bad time Kahlan but I’m stronger for it. I’ve faced her before and she was just a person, just a person who was broken beyond belief and put together again in the most brutal way possible, like Cara. The buribar made her a nightmare because it was easy but I’m not scared when I close my eyes anymore.”  
  
Kahlan freed her arms from her blanket and threw them around her Seeker. “I’m glad,” she whispered though in her gut there burned a rage for the torment Denna had inflicted upon him. Richard’s hands came up to tangle in her curls, fingers stroking from the base of her skull and down her back over the silky strands of her hair.  
  
“Are you okay?” he whispered back, “about the con dar...” he clarified.  
  
Kahlan shrugged nonchalantly but he could feel the new tension in her muscles. “I’ll learn to control it, right? There’s nothing else I can do,” she answered and Richard’s heart clenched at the resignation and defeat in her voice.  
  
“When this is all over we’ll go back to Aydindril, I’m sure there are records of other Confessors who’ve learned to master it,” he reassured her.  
  
“I hope so,” Kahlan agreed quietly.  
  
Richard dropped a light kiss in her hair and then the two were quiet, listening to the rain coming down until it lulled them both to sleep.  
  
In the house, Lu sat awake listening to the rain. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the scarecrow’s ghastly grin. She knew the buribar was dead but she was still afraid to go to sleep. She couldn’t wake her parents or Peter. Everyone had a big day tomorrow. She’d resolved not to read anything in case she really was responsible for the frog and the buribar, but the temptation of escaping her fear between the pages of a book was tempting. Too tempting. Lu found herself lighting her candle and pulling out the old book of fairy tales from the bottom of her bookshelf, she’d read something light and easy, something without strange creatures, something that would help her feel safe and sleepy.  
  
Lu read and though her lips moved no sound escaped them and neither did any creatures that night. She fell asleep with the image of a whale in a teacup in her head and a smile on her lips.  
  
~~~~

  
The next day dawned grey and drizzly but that didn’t stop the celebrations. The wedding was held in the same tavern they’d eaten at the day before. The place was transformed with daylilies and daisies and the traditional dandelions for a town that believed in the power of wishes. Lu had collected the flowers early that morning after Zedd wiggled his fingers and encouraged them to bloom despite the dull weather. Peter and Kat’s ceremony was a simple but heartfelt affair. They held the fork together and toasted the bread, murmured the words that had been spoken in their village for years upon years. Peter’s eyes were wet when they closed to kiss his new bride and Kat held him so tightly to her, her dress was rumpled when they pulled apart. The ceremony ended after that and soon the celebration had begun.  
  
The baker had outdone himself with the pastries and tarts, meat pies and rolls, but the cake was the crowning achievement. Peter himself had done the icing and the flowers looked as lifelike as their living counterparts that lined the walls. The music was lively and soon even the Seeker and the Mother Confessor were drawn into the dancing. They clapped and whirled and Kahlan’s cheeks grew rosy with the exercise and the pleasure of dancing instead of fighting. Richard and Kahlan’s steps were as well matched on the dance floor as they were on the battle field, and Kahlan’s laughter as Richard twirled them around brought a smile to Zedd’s lips. The music turned to a reel and the baker’s wife grabbed Zedd’s hands drawing him into the dance.  
  
In her corner, Cara smirked and rolled her eyes as the Wizard allowed himself to be drawn into the dance. Richard and Kahlan broke away and faced down Cara with matching insistent looks.  
  
“No,” she said flatly.  
  
“Come on, Cara,” Richard wheedled.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Yes,” Kahlan disagreed grabbing for her arm and tugged. Cara sat unmoving until Richard grabbed her other arm and pulled. Cara remained a rock. She arched her eyebrows at the pair. Kahlan gave her best ‘please’ face. Cara rolled her eyes and shook her head.  
  
“What are you scared?” Richard challenged slyly. Cara glared.  
  
“It is not befitting of a Mord Sith to carouse with the peasants,” she told him haughtily.  
  
“I don’t know,” he grinned at Kahlan, “she’s the Mother Confessor, I’m the Seeker and Lord Rahl and Zedd’s the first Wizard, but we’re dancing. I think she’s just scared she can’t keep time,” he teased.  
  
“I’m not going to be dared into dancing, Richard. Your idea of a cunning plan is ‘everyone on three’. I am Mord Sith,” she tilted her head and arched an eyebrow.  
  
Kahlan leaned into Cara’s space; her eyes twinkled merrily as she whispered, “chicken.”  
  
Cara growled and got to her feet menacingly. Kahlan and Richard seized her arms and before she knew it she was sandwiched between the two of them, Zedd grasped Kahlan’s free hand and they were all spinning and spinning and spinning with the rhythm of the dance.  
  
Lu sat in a corner of the room as usual, watching everything silently. On her lap lay the brand new book Peter had given her that morning, there was a dragon etched in gold on the green cover. Lu had made it through four chapters already but the music from the dancing was making it hard to concentrate. She turned her gaze back to the book and her lips began to move silently as she grew more and more engrossed in the story.

Lu forgot herself and started reading almost under her breath so she could better concentrate on the story.  
  
“...the dragon heard the call from far off and turned in mid flight, swooping towards the little village in the forest. It had one intention, to burn the town that would hold the Wizard captive...” Lu stopped, realizing what she’d been doing. Her hand went to her mouth and her eyes anxiously sought a window. She got to her feet and rushed over to peer out but the sky was the same flat grey it had been all morning, not even a speck of red in sight. Maybe she’d been wrong, maybe she had been overreacting. There was no way she could have suddenly developed the magic to make things she read come to life. The frog and the buribar were just a coincidence. That frog wouldn’t turn into a prince if she kissed it and the buribar appeared all on its own.  
  
Lu let out a relieved laugh though in her heart of hearts she was maybe a little disappointed. She sat back down in her corner and opened her book again.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
She was drawn out of the story by her brother’s boots. She looked up to see him and Kat standing before her, both beaming with happiness and Lu could not help but smile back.  
  
“Lu, the Seeker has never heard the story of how our wishing tree came to be, will you read it to them?” Peter asked.  
  
Lu blushed right to the tips of her ears. “Peter, why don’t you get the troubadour to sing it for them?” she whispered.  
  
“Come on, Lu,” Kat smiled encouragingly at the girl. “No one knows the story as well as you.”  
  
“For me?” Peter lifted his brows.  
  
Lu bit her lip, and nodded finally. She hadn’t gotten them a wedding present but she could do this. It wasn’t like she could really read things out of books.  
  
“Richard!” Peter called and Lu could feel herself begin to shake as the Seeker walked over.  
  
“The book’s at home,” she whispered to Kat, who nodded.

~~~~~  
  
The family and the Seeker’s companions snuck away from the party and back to the house where Lu retrieved the book and they all sat under the wishing tree since the rain had finally stopped though the sky remained gloomy. The bedraggled bits of wish paper hung from the branches and dripped water just like the leaves. Her father smiled proudly at Lu and the girl ducked her head. Her hands still trembled when they opened the book on the history of Reamur and she could not look at the Seeker who had saved her from the Calthrop nor the Mother Confessor nor the Wizard nor the Mord Sith. She was just a little girl while they were so powerful after all even if they acted nice.

Lu found the page and began to read, her small voice quavering at first and then growing stronger as she forgot her audience and grew caught up in the story as she always did.  
  
“Once in a time when there were many Confessors, there lived one young Confessor named Theodora, she had russet coloured hair and blue green eyes that changed colour with her mood and Theodora had many moods.” For a moment Lu could see her standing there behind the group, head held haughtily, hands planted on her hips over the black Confessor dress. She shook her head and went back to the story. “Theodora was assigned a wizard for protection as all Confessors are; he was a bright and shining star in the Keep, one of the youngest and most powerful of all the Wizards. Patrick Hathaway was a cocky young man, he had his power, his good looks and his way with the ladies. They called him ‘Trick’, for his penchant for dancing coins along his knuckles.  
  
Trick and Theodora fought like cats and dogs from the first moment they met. He insisted on calling her Teddy...”  
  
This time when Lu stopped reading it was because of the glint of gold that glittered in a stray ray of sunshine. She looked up and standing behind the group was a tall man, maybe a few years older than the Seeker, with dark hair, clad in burgundy wizard’s robes. Beside him was a woman with the same russet curls she’d read about and a black dress with a square cut neckline. The two were looking about them in confusion when Lu dropped the book. Everyone turned to see what had startled the girl.  
  
“Look here,” the man said, “what’s going on? Where are we?”  
  
Richard, Kahlan and Cara were on their feet before he’d finished speaking. Cara had her agiels out while Richard and Kahlan kept their hands on their weapons but did not draw them. Zedd scrutinized the newcomers curiously.  
  
“You can’t be here,” Lu whispered, shrinking back against the tree trunk. “You’re dead, you’re just a story in a book, you’re not real...”

“I am very real, young lady,” the Confessor replied with a stern look. “And I’d like to know how we got here.” Theodora’s hands strayed to the hilts of her daggers. Kahlan stepped forward, glad she’d changed into her Mother Confessor dress for the wedding that morning. She expected this imposter to see the dress and flinch. Instead Theodora drew her daggers rather than releasing them as Kahlan had thought she would.  
  
“Who are you? Why are you parading around pretending to be the Mother Confessor?” Theodora demanded, taking a menacing step forward. Richard and Cara stepped towards Kahlan.  
  
The violence that was brewing in the clearing was put on pause by a roar that rattled the stones and set Lu’s bones to quaking even more than they had been. Overhead a creature from children’s stories soared towards them, death on red wings. It beat them now and then, more to show off the power in those scaled wings than to keep itself aloft, Lu felt. The talons glinted wickedly in the poor sunlight that was struggling through the clouds. The dragon swooped down on the clearing and let out a torrent of flames, Zedd and Trick’s hands came up in the same moment, both of them chanting the spell that would form a shield around the clearing.  
  
The dragon roared in fury as the flames spent themselves futilely against the barrier. It soared away to take another pass at the clearing.

“Hold the shield!” Trick ordered Zedd. He dropped his hands and reached into one of the pouches at his waist. He poured some green sand into his hand and blew it towards the oncoming dragon; it passed through the magical barriers and grew to surround the dragon as if a strong wind had blown it onwards.  
  
The dragon beat its' wings trying to dispel the magical sand but could not escape the cloud. Before their startled eyes it grew smaller and smaller as if it were rising higher in the sky but it wasn’t. The dragon was shrinking to the size of a condor and then an eagle and finally the size of a hawk. It dove towards Trick, claws outstretched and bellowing in fury, it raked its claws across Trick’s cheek before Teddy plucked it off him, barely the size of a kitten now.  
  
“Now look what you’ve done,” she scolded the dragon that squirmed in her hand.  
  
“Thanks, Teddy,” Trick took the dragon from her and glowered at it. It let out a tiny puff of steam from its snout and trundled up his arm to curl up on his shoulder. It closed its eyes on the whole affair.  
  
“Too bad it was a forest fire and not dragon fire that killed us,” Teddy said with a wry smile for Trick.  
  
“I know,” he sighed in disappointment.  
  
“Are you saying you’re the Wizard and the Confessor that died here in Reamur?” Kat demanded of the two.  
  
“That is exactly what I’m saying,” Trick glared at the girl. “Though how we came to be here now I do not know...”  
  
“I believe it was this young lady,” Zedd gestured to Lu. “I think she read you out of her book.”  
  
“I’ve never heard of that kind of magic,” Trick scoffed.  
  
“Nor have I,” Cara chimed in and then looked surprised that she’d just said that. She took a firmer grip on her agiels as if to make up for agreeing with the enemy.  
  
“I...” Lu felt her throat close up as all eyes turned to her, “I made a wish a few days ago that the characters I read could come to life,” she mumbled.  
  
“Lu!” Her mother scolded.  
  
“I wasn’t thinking! I was reading out here and the words just slipped out!” she defended. “It’s not like every wish someone makes under the Wizard and Confessor tree comes true!” she complained actually sounding like a normal eleven year old.  
  
“Wizard and Confessor tree?” Teddy asked, looking past Lu to the tree behind her, it was the ugliest tree she’d ever seen all gnarled roots and awkward branches, her quick eyes however soon saw that it was in fact two trees, that had grown and twined together until it looked like one great tree.  
  
“Yes...after – after you died,” Lu cast them an apologetic look as if she’d brought up a sore subject, “and the fires went out the tree appeared. People come here and write their wishes on it and sometimes they come true. We all thought it was because of your magic,” she explained.

Trick turned to Teddy with a happy smile on his handsome face. “Well would you look at that,” he grinned, “we’re still useful even though we died!”

Teddy rolled her eyes. “I’m sure we would’ve been a lot more useful had we not died in that fire,” she grumbled.

Trick actually looked apologetic. “I know...I tried my best, Teddy...”

Teddy reached for his hand and even Kahlan looked startled. The Confessor nodded to her Wizard. “I know you did, Trick,” she murmured, her eyes showing her own apologies.

“Did you just say you know I tried my best? That you don’t think I was an incompetent slacker?” Trick stepped back in mock shock.

Teddy let go of his hand and glared. “For once in your lazy life,” she replied.

“Not to interrupt the show,” Cara’s drawl broke the spell and everyone stopped staring at the long lost wizard and confessor. “But what are we going to do with them? And with her?” she nodded at Lu.  
  
Zedd stepped forward. “It’s been almost three hundred years since you two were alive, many things have changed since then.”  
  
Teddy turned to Kahlan and bowed her head as she knelt before her, “I’m sorry for the disrespect, Mother Confessor,” she murmured.  
  
Kahlan inclined her head and gestured for Teddy to rise.  
  
“Why don’t we go back to the house and talk there,” Lu’s mother suggested.  
  
“Did you make the dragon too?” Peter asked Lu as they walked towards the backdoor.  
  
Lu flushed guiltily. “This morning, I read it out of that book you gave me. And the buribar a few days ago too,” she confessed.  
  
“Tallulah!” Her mother’s voice was horrified and Lu cringed.  
  
Eventually it was decided that Teddy and Trick would return to Aydindril to be updated on the goings on of the last three centuries. Teddy would assist Dennee in overseeing the Confessor’s palace. Trick would study with the Wizards in the Keep. The dragon Lu had read remained in Trick’s care and it did not seem to mind its new tiny size. Lu was to go to Aydindril with them and learn to control her new power. They left with hugs and well wishes, Kahlan almost crushed the other Confessor with a hug before she set out, she was so grateful she and Dennee weren’t the only Confessors left anymore.  
  
The wishing tree of Reamur still granted wishes because the Wizard and Confessor had been read out of a book not resurrected from the dead though it certainly felt like it to them. And finally the Seeker and his merry band left the town of Reamur, once more following the compass in search of the Stone of Tears.  
  
The morning they left Kahlan found Richard staring at the wishing tree, his gaze thoughtful. She walked up to him with a smile and took his hand, threading her fingers through his.  
  
“Thinking of what to wish for?” she asked.  
  
“There are a lot of things I could wish for,” he acknowledged, “but everything I really want is worth working for.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles softly. Kahlan blushed with pleasure but held his gaze.  
  
“They died in their quest,” Richard nodded at the entwined wishing trees and his voice was heavy with things unsaid.  
  
“They have a second chance now,” Kahlan reminded him gently.  
  
Richard let go of her fingers and wrapped his arm about her waist, holding her to him for long moments.  
  
“We should go,” she told him finally, “before Cara leaves without us.”  
  
Richard laughed. “If the compass would work for her I think she would!”

~~~~

They were seven days away when Cara woke with a start in the middle of the night and thunked herself on the forehead. Richard who had been keeping watch came over to her. “We could have just had her read the Stone out of a book!” She exclaimed in frustration to the Seeker.

Richard smiled and shook his head. “I doubt it would’ve worked, it wouldn’t have been the same, just like Teddy and Trick weren’t the same.”

Cara rolled her eyes at him but conceded his point and lay back down.  
  
Richard poked the fire and smiled at his sleeping friends.


End file.
